INTRODUCTION

Paul's letter to the Romans 5: 1-5: "Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produce endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."

PAUL'S CONTEXT

Paul's letter to the Roman is an irenic, benevolent discussion of many topics he has written and preached about earlier to different communities. The letter to the Romans is not polemical or apologetic. It is a didactic and horatory letter, where Paul wants to teach and encourage and build up the Roman community, by the sharing and discussion of the Jewish and Gentile Christians of Rome, for their understanding and for their conduct.

The occasion of his writing is to share his plans to come to Rome so this is a self-introduction. Here we listen to the mature Paul, the evangelist and missionary, reflecting on salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, reflecting on this new path wrought by the life, teaching, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for all humanity, for all creation.

In chapter 4 Paul recalls the example of Abraham's faith. In chapter 5, he affirms that through our faith we have peace with God through Our Lord Jesus Christ - through Jesus we have obtained access to this grace. God creates us through LOVE; Jesus redeems us while we are yet sinners and so we became reconciled to God. We recall the list of terms used by Paul to try to express something of the Paschal Mystery that has touched his life and to which he is now committed: SALVATION, LIBERATION, RECONCILIATION, JUSTIFICATION, GLORIFICATION, EXPIATION, REDEMPTION, NEW CREATION.

The passage in Romans 5:5 is thematic and central not only for the message that Paul was committed to confirm in the community gathered under the name of Jesus Christ at Rome, but it continues to bring the powerful message of our Lord, sharing God's very self, that is, God's own love. This LOVE is infusing, permeating, filling up our very being through the mystery of the Holy Spirit poured out upon us.

Chap. 5. Verse 3: "… we boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope:" Then verse 5: "…and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."

We are not investing, to use contemporary financial language, in a very hi-risk proposition in committing ourselves to God. God's very self is our guarantor. God's self-communication, as theologian Karl Rahner says, is our assurance that our hope - in freedom, in goodness, in wholeness, in reconciliation, in eternal happiness - our hope IS NOT IN VAIN. Yet without the gift of Godself, of grace, we cannot say our YES to God's offer.

Paul was aware of the situation in the Roman community, of its problems, of its divisions. How can we sketch our situation as a faith community as we live into the millennium.

Let me first speak to the terms in the title of this reflection: "A Gospel Spirituality for the Millennium".

SPIRITUALITY

Philosophers speak of human spirituality as our capacity for self-transcendence, for moving beyond where or how we are. This capacity is demonstrated in our potential to know the truth, to choose the good, to relate to others justly and lovingly, and to commit ourselves freely to authentic action for creative living. Our spirituality is the way we consciously direct our lives. We may say then that everyone lives out of a spirituality.

Spirituality in the religious sense would be the way persons consciously direct our lives coming from, as immersed in and growing toward (or even away from) what is acknowledged as the Ultimate, as the Holy, as Mystery. So we find specific Jewish, Christian, Hindu and Native spiritualities.

GOSPEL SPIRITUALITY

A CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY is the concrete manner, inspired by God's Spirit, of living the Gospel. A GOSPEL SPIRITUALITY is the way we consciously live our lives, formed and configured into the life, death and resurrection of the one Jesus Christ, who reveals God in a unique and definitive way, who reveals how God chooses to dwell with and among us, through the power of their Holy Spirit. A Gospel spirituality, then, is a spirituality rooted in "…God's love that has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given us." (Rom 5:5)

THE MILLENNIUM

A Millennium is simply a thousand years, a thousandth anniversary. We are remembering a time-marker, a neon and flourescent, flashing beacon, that signals two thousand years since the event that all Christians, surely believers in other religions and even agnostics will acknowledge, has profoundly influenced human history.

Even our more contemporary re-naming of time designation, from BC (before Christ) and AD (anno Domini) to BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era) cannot diminish the pivotal event of God entering human history and becoming Incarnate in Jesus Christ, in order to come closer to those whom God's LOVE creates, to all that God's Love creates.

How are we living in the early years of the Third Millennium? Are we striding, limping, roller-blading, shuffling backwards, alone, in caravan, skybussing, sailing, singing, groaning, mute. The way we image ourselves and the feelings around that image, will offer insight for our reflection, if we but welcome it.

THE BAD NEWS

It is important here to distinguish millennium and millennialism where an apocalyptic mindset pervades and we observe the closing years of the decade to reflect a gradually escalating dread --- for example, recently I was working with a group of young people in their late teens who asked me such questions as "Do you believe in aliens?" and "Does the coming of the millennium mean the end of the world?" Considered from a secular view, such "millennialism" in our age anticipates the risk that every disaster will been seen as a portent of greater cataclysms to follow.

In the fall of 1997, Gary Dorrien wrote in the journal CROSS CURRENTS that the end of this 20^th century that began with social gospel hopes for a 'cooperative commonwealth,' finds an unfinished Kingdom, already here but not yet. Our prisons are full and threatened in their populations with epidemics of hepatitis C and AIDS, large areas of major cities are in serious decline, income and wealth are increasingly maldistributed, political systems bend to the power of organized economic interests and an alarming degree of economic insecurity and unemployment prevails.

A worldwide environmental crisis caused by the commodification of nature threatens to suffocate the planet itself, while a more predatory world-embracing economic market is emerging and, as some analysis asserts, this economic market is accelerating the destruction of the natural world.

A globalization of capitalism that hits hardest in poorer nations and a profound crisis of meaning in richer countries offer a bleak picture. This to one sketches of the end of millennium situation.

To put this in a wider perspective, this bleak picture is not unlike what secular history tells us about the last years of the first millennium that were haunted by thoughts of the end of time, the "terrors of the year 1000." In recent years, various millennialisms, in the form of political and social movements that are essentially secular and completely atheistic, grew up.

Further images of millennialism may put us on overload, much like many media saturations, including: multiplication of nuclear wastes, the acid rains, the disappearance of the Amazon, tears in the ozone lining, the migration of disinherited peoples who are arising to strike, sometimes violently, at the doors of well-being, the hunger of entire continents, new incurable plagues, the conscious destruction of the soil for profit, the suddenly changing climate, glaciers that are melting and chemical engineering that will construct our clones.

We are in the process of experiencing -- even if in the distracted attitude to which mass communications have accustomed us - the terrors of the end-time, seducing us to 'eat, drink, and be merry, since tomorrow we die."

THE GOOD NEWS

Now we listen to the Gospel message from Rom 5:5 "…and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."

What is the Holy Spirit speaking to our hearts as we welcome the millennium? What are we to do as a Christian community? What common human concerns do we have with others on this earth? How should we live through this period of grace taking seriously the decline but remembering redemption.

Through hearing and experiencing the gift of God's love poured into our hearts we will assert that "love drives out all fear" and our spirituality, our way of living will be the way of Jesus Christ. We will have our eyes opened and our ears attuned to receive again the call to conversion as it is expressed in the message of Pope John Paul's apostolic letter, Tertio Millenni Adveniente, As the Third Millennium Draws Near, issued on November 14, 1994.

Here the Pope reminds us that the 2,000 years that have passed since the birth of Jesus the Christ represent an extraordinary jubilee not only for Christians, but indirectly for the whole of humanity:

The 2,000 years which have passed since the birth of Christ (prescinding from the question of its precise chronology) represent an extraordinary great jubilee, not only for Christians but indirectly for the whole of humanity, given the prominent role played by Christianity during these two millennia. It is significant that the calculation of the passing years begins almost everywhere with the year of Christ's coming into the world, which is thus the center of the calendar most widely used today. Is this not another sign of the unparalleled effect of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth on the history of humankind? (No. 15)

This document outlined a period of preparation leading up to the year 2000, which the Pope has named the Great Jubilee. Pope John Paul II's letter offered preparation, writes the Pope, requires a renewed commitment to apply, as faithfully as possible, the teachings of Vatican II to the life of every individual and the church as a whole.

MILLENNIUM

In distinguishing between "millennium" and "jubilee," we should recall that we are celebrating the 2,000 years since the birth of Jesus - a real historical event - and the proclamation of a jubilee is only a way, an instrument, for celebrating this event. Our celebration is first of all a festival for Christians, since the incarnation of the Son of God became an event that divided history between the time before and the time after - in effect, creating the final phase or stage of history.

The Pope has insisted that this celebration is one for the whole of humanity. We need to acknowledge, of course, that the counting of the years since the nativity of Jesus is a Christian and Western practice. For Jews the year 2000 shall be the year 5760; for Buddhists, the year 254; for Muslims, the year 1421. As a footnote, the chronological measure of 2,00 year since the birth of Jesus is probably incorrect because the new millennium, dated from his nativity, started before the beginning of the year 2000, but in the year 2001, as there was no year zero. However, we cannot deny that the advent of the year 2000 in our calendar has a certain magic in itself, a kind of aura for all people.

Even though million throughout the world do not accept the central place of Christ, they do recognize, nevertheless, that in a certain way a new time in history began with his birth. In short, everyone on this globe has some relationship to Jesus Christ and the implications of his teaching - about universal peace, forgiveness, love of enemies, solidarity and love for the poor. In this sense, the Pope rightly says that this is an event that in some way concerns everybody.

JUBILEE

Whether Christian or Jew, believer or non-believer, this time of transition provides an occasion for reviewing the past and pausing for a moment in the course of our history. The word "jubilee" a word that comes from the Hebrew Bible, indicates a celebration that had to be held every 50 years. A jubilee provided a social occasion to forgive and put things again in order, especially the redistribution of the land and the liberation of slaves.

At least in theory, a jubilee, if any were actually celebrated (the Bible is not specific about this), was a religious event to promote justice and solidarity. In the minds of the Jews a jubilee remains a great social ideal and point of reference, based on the belief that God was the real owner of the land and that, to fight against impoverishment, land had to be distributed. In Christian terminology, jubilees were introduced (again) in the 14 century to mark the celebration of the anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ.

A Christian religious celebration based on a supposed Jewish practice has important social implications. As a result, we need to avoid applying the world "jubilee" as a synonym for a big feast, since repentance, acts of solidarity, concern for the poor and conversion ought to energize each and every jubilee. Above all, Christians believe that during a jubilee they are not celebrating what women and men do or have done, but what God has done for humanity, namely brought about the incarnation fo God's Beloved, the Annointed One.

With is knowledge, there comes a gentle urgency that we truly know and act as if we know that the "…love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit given us."

APOCALYPSE

I want to reflect on the word "apocalyptic" and its relation to the millennium. The approach of the second millennium was an occasion for some to enter into an apocalyptic mode of thinking. While scholars differ regarding what the word apocalyptic means, most agree that in Greek, it refers to a type of revelation, when a veil is removed from an object.

We have at least a general familiarity with apocalyptic, based on our reading of the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible and the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. By apocalyptic is meant a kind of uneasiness with the world, a deep dissatisfaction with the present state of things, as well as a hope that things may change suddenly through a great event - not so much a change brought about by the work of human hands, but through a great intervention of some higher forces.

Apocalyptic thinkers anticipate something completely new coming from above that will change the course of history, though they are never sure of what or when this change will actually occur. Such revelation is generally thought to be transmitted by some higher being to a prophet, often communicated in a cryptic language that only some people can understand.

Apocalypticism has to do with hope and fear - hope for the future, fear for the end of history. It has to do with the expectation of the beginning of a new age. Our present age is full of apocalyptic predictions, many of them from the founders of different sects who proclaim the end of the world is near, or not far off. Or many who are preoccupied by speculations about such things as the third secret of Fatima. What does it contain? And who can totally refute such thinking when in addition to the Book of Revelation, examples of apocalyptic language can be found in other parts of the New Testament.

For some, changing the calendar year from 1999 to 2000 has little religious significance. But for believers, such a change signals a desire to renew hope and courage according to the apocalyptic dimension of the Gospels. Such dimensions intend to affirm that, with Jesus, we have entered the final stage of history, the age of our salvation.

THE END TIMES

If one were to ask then, are these days at the entry of the millennium, the final days of history, we can only answer yes, since the coming of Jesus Christ, these are the final days, the days of our salvation. When will the final day come? That is not our question, but it rests in the loving and merciful embrace of our God.

We should not expect some big change in human history as we celebrate the new millennium. The coming of the year 2000 has not blazed into history with dramatic differences. It is rather an urging us into a new consciousness, a renewed commitment to seek the first things, to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, to regain an awareness of the great and essential change in human history brought forth by the coming of Jesus Christ. In seeking first the Kingdom of God, all else will be given.

Yes, changes will occur. We live daily in the midst of change. Every prayer well uttered creates this change. Every act of love creates this change --- redeemed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus --- the Human story of God's love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Advocate, sent by Jesus Christ, to live within and among us.

KNOWING GOD

In this knowledge of Emmanuel, God with us, there comes a wakefulness, a call to alertness. Not only do we know, but we know that we know, and we act as if we know that the "…love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit given us."

In this attentive consciousness, created and made active by the love of God through God's Holy Spirit, seeking and questioning and yearning and groaning and creating with us and among us, we sketch some of the ways this love of God is already now incarnate in our world, calling us to join in, to increase and multiply.

JUSTICE * We work for justice and love with a certainty that justice and love shall prevail, assured that it is already in the present order of things. In the Kingdom of God, the days of forgiveness and love have begun and this order shall be forever. God's glory shall be revealed day after day.

NEW WORLD ECONOMY * With the coming of salvation in Christ, a new world economy is possible, based, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, not on competition but on concern for all human beings.

MEANING *We need first to address those who are searching for meaning in life and would like to be helped in the new millennium. We need to bring to them new openings for this meaning, e.g., those living in multicultural contexts, and women struggling for an authentic place along with men in changing systems.

LOCAL CHURCH * Pope John Paul stresses the importance of regional and local church celebrations of the Jubilee, not with any new programmes but with a deepening consciousness of what we are already doing in our parishes and dioceses toward the Jubilee, by facilitating and affirming the involvement of each woman and man who offers their gifts and talents to the service of the church and community.

DEBT CANCELLATION * Consider the cancellation of debts on a parish, diocesan or national church level. Asking how better can we exercise the virtue of Christian hospitality - through smaller, workable, pastoral units that can integrate people with so many disparate needs? Reach out to those who need reconciliation --- the separated and divorced, former priests and religious who many times are simply searching for their place within the church. In particular we care for those who experience oppression and even violence.

In this we share the "…love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit given us." (Rom 5:5)

ECUMENICAL AND INTERFAITH REALITY * Mindful of the ecumenical and interfaith realities in the Great Jubilee, Pope John Paul suggests rewriting our martyrologies - the official lists of saints martyred for faith in Jesus Christ - to include those who lost their lives under the totalitarian regimes of the 20the century, and the Pope has offered to include the names of both Protestant and Orthodox martyrs as well as Catholic ones for veneration.

JEWISH-CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM DIALOGUES * The Pope called for simultaneous celebrations of Jubilee in Rome and in Holy Land and notes potential of places such as Bethlehem and Jerusalem for furthering dialogue with Jews and Muslims (TMA 53).

YOUNG PEOPLE * We need to help young people find distinctive points of reference in their quest of meaning. Young people have a hunger, a spiritual hunger. They want to know how to pray, to become absorbed in listening to God's words.

LOVE DRIVES OUT FEAE * We need to support one another in living the New Millennium, not with fear and anxiety but with JOY and HOPE. Many suggest using mass communication such as TV and Radio as occasion for retreats and programmes that help us remember "God love poured into our hearts" in the midst of news broadcasts of disaster and evil.

PILGRIMAGE * Pope John Paul is inviting the Church and the world to go on pilgrimage together to God. Pilgrimages draw people to God. A shrine responds to the deepest need of the human hear to seek and find God. We are called now to a renewed pilgrim spirituality.

Here, now, today, we can see with the eyes of love, how THE LOVE OF GOD POURED INTO OUR HEARTS THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVEN US (Rom 5:5) is already at work in the world. We are invited to join the work of Kingdom building through our own loving and acting.

CONCLUSION

In our life journey of continual conversion and growing intimacy with the God of Jesus Christ, we enter and live each day of this new millennium with courage and hope. Christ has come among us and remains with us. Christ's presence, the strength of the Holy Spirit, is stronger than ever. During the two millennia of the history of sanctity and faith, Jesus, our Saviour, has shown that God is the God of history, God who shall guide this dawning of a new millennium with outpourings of love and hope. Let us be with Christ as Christ is with us.

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